


The One Worth Leaving

by korynn



Category: Being Human, Being Human (UK)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 17:43:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korynn/pseuds/korynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wakes up and she isn't dead but she might have a ghost clinging to her shadow.</p><p>He's captivated by this girl who can cheat death, but doesn't even know it yet.</p><p>They just want to be normal, but who ever gets that lucky?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Worth Leaving

**Author's Note:**

> Un beta'd, so please point out mistakes; I wrote a lot of this on my iphone and autocorrect eats things sometimes.
> 
> [The District Sleeps Alone Tonight by The Postal Service fueled a lot of this.]

The first time she sees him, she's dead.

Annie's staring at her own body, watching him pause, hover in her doorway, fingers clenching with each slow throb of her pulse.

She knows it's her pulse, because he doesn't have one.

Days later, she wakes up gasping, catching him in the corner of the room, behind so many concerned, work-worn faces, a conflicted look quickly washed away by the lights and noise.

He keeps showing up, like maybe he's the ghost, but she'd remember that face. Annie keeps trying to catch his attention, but she's still fairly useless. Owen's still a shadow around her, and she can't escape him. She can't stop hearing nothing but his voice, the monster of what she thought was forever.

Sleeping just brings nightmares, and for some the reason it takes the doctors, nurses, whomever, days to notice. Annie thinks they would've never given her a second glance if it wasn't for him.

He sometimes gathers up the courage to step into her room, to put a hand on the corner of her bed and know that she'd react if it wasn't for the way those nights are the ones she sleeps the easiest through.

Annie keeps hoping that maybe he's just a figment of her drug-addled mind, that the PTSD is so bad she's given herself a guardian angel, something to give her hope.

Until the grave shift nearly a week later, where she wakes up to him clinging at her wrist and both of them nearly choking for air, pain a faint tingle in her spine, as if they were both electrocuted.

"You were leaving again. What are you trying to do?"

He's Irish. Of course he is, she's let her brain work overtime on what his voice should sound like.

"What?" She hasn't heard her own voice in over a month, and the last time was at a scream, one Annie can still hear so plainly, feel the roughness down her throat.

The pain comes back in waves, and he's staring at her with wide eyes, as if she was something more than average.

"You're...you're not dead, but you... you're a ghost sometimes." He pauses, finally letting go and the lack of his touch feels much deeper than it should, "I can feel you...die...but..."

She reaches out for him again, the strange scratching in the back of her head taking over, muffling his voice. "I can't stop it. Its like...waves." Annie wheezes out, eyes watering as his touch does nothing to curb the pain now a weight on her ribcage, and that's when she realizes he's been wearing scrubs this whole time, _every time_ , and he smells so strongly of cleaners it washes out the copper taste on the back of her tongue.

He's real.

He's real and she's dying again, and he can't help --

Stars burst in her vision, skin too tight, and Annie could call the sensation pleasure if it didn't make her skull feel like it was in a vice.

Annie's dead again, and there he is, propped over her body as she stands at the end of her own bed.

"What happened to me?"

His gaze whips her way, and thats when she realizes she isn't going anywhere.

"This happens every night, doesn't it?"

He nods, slowly, curls sliding into his face, and god, she wants to reach out and touch, but she has no idea what that might feel like. "You normally just...wander, or sit watching, but the doctors assume it's faulty machinery, you going flatline every night, so they've stopped bothering, you always come back whole once they step in. You weren't sleeping well, and....I must've woke you as it was happening. I'm so sorry."

Listening to him, she feels like she's always known him, but she pulls her attention away from him to her body, frowning and stepping around, closer to his side. "You're not normal, are you?"

"I can't answer you in detail, but yes."

"Alright. Explains the whole 'no pulse' bit, then." She smiles slightly at his bewildered look, but doesn't go any further when he doesn't ask, instead reaching out to touch herself and getting stopped by his hand on her wrist.

"If you do that, you...go back. I...can we talk just a bit longer? This is safer." He looks almost terrified, so she nods, free hand fumbling with her hospital gown as she realizes how much skin she's showing. Owen would be furious with her and there's going to be bruises to hide and - she's back in her body, leaving a vampire to flee out of her room as her pulse hits his ears again, reminding him of the hunger he's forsaken.

Annie doesn't know it, but death's door is locked to her, something stronger than a flight of stairs keeping her from it.

But what's that saying again? One door closes and another opens?


End file.
